Crimo was arrested after a brief chase near Lake Forest, a town north of Chicago, about six miles from the scene of the massacre, hours after a high-powered rifle fired into a crowd enjoying the holiday. The shooter appeared to have taken up a sniper position on a rooftop before opening fire and sparking scenes of chaos as people ran for cover for their lives. Police on Tuesday said Krimo bought the gun legally in the Chicago area. Chris Covelli, of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, revealed that the suspect had been “planning his attack for several weeks” and was dressed in women’s clothing to conceal his identity during the shooting. He reached the roof via a fire escape and used a high-powered rifle similar to an AR-15 to fire over 70 rounds into the crowd. Photo of Robert Crimo dressed as a woman to escape the area of the mass shooting (WGN9) After the shooting, he was able to get out of the firehouse and blend into the crowd before walking to his mother’s house, who lived nearby, and getting her car. “This person was originally reported to have long hair, so a wig is not out of the question.” A member of the public recognized Mr. Crimo’s vehicle from information released by the authorities and called 911, and he was arrested a short time later after the police located the car. A search of his home also turned up several other firearms, including handguns. The motive for the attack is still unknown, but police said they do not believe it was racially motivated. Five people died on the spot. The sixth died later in hospital on Monday and the seventh was confirmed dead on Tuesday.
Who is Robert Crimo?
Mr Crimo goes by the nickname Bobby and is an amateur rapper. He had allegedly uploaded a series of videos online several months before the shooting, filled with violent images and depictions of mass murder. He goes by the stage name ‘Wake Up the Rapper’ and has over 16,000 listeners a month on his Spotify page. His social media footprint shows that he is a video game enthusiast who seemed to fantasize about mass shootings. A recent video allegedly posted by Mr. Crimo on YouTube appeared to show the aftermath of a school shooting with him dressed in an American flag. In another animated video titled ‘Toy Soldier’, he appeared to show his own death. The video showed a man, apparently impersonating Mr Crimo, wearing a black T-shirt with the logo of his YouTube channel and standing in a pool of blood during a confrontation with police. The video begins by showing a student texting in class while Mr Crimo raps “f*** this world” with visuals showing a heavily armed gunman opening fire inside a school. A drawing of a man lying covered in blood can be seen in this still image taken from a video (Robert Crimo via REUTERS) In another video, in which he appears in a classroom wearing a black bicycle helmet, he says he is “like a sleepwalker. I know what I have to do,” adding that “everything has led to this. Nothing can stop me, not even myself.” The YouTube channel that posted the videos was unavailable Monday night after being publicly accessible for months. In 2020, he was pictured attending a Donald Trump rally dressed as the main character from ‘Where’s Waldo?’ In another photo on Twitter, he was seen wrapped in a Trump flag as a cape. He was also photographed wearing an FBI hat and liked a video of Joe Biden. Mr. Crimo had his own Discord server called “SS” where he chatted with people. It has since been removed. According to NBC news, the community featured a political painting with several nihilistic memes. The most recent community post before the shooting was in March, showing a photo of Budd Dwyer, the Pennsylvania state treasurer who shot himself on live television in the late 1980s with the caption, “May politicians continue to they give speeches like this.” Robert Crimo is the middle child of three brothers and his IMBD page describes him as a rapper, singer, songwriter, actor and director from Chicago. (Robert Crimo via REUTERS) Discord users shared photos of Mr Crimo with a selfie that appeared to reference suicide. His caption read: “Damn screenshot and send to all or commit to not being alive anymore (sic).” On Tuesday, Spotify and YouTube removed all of Mr. Crimo’s content, according to CNN. “Following the horrific incident in Highland Park, our Trust and Safety teams quickly identified and removed the offending content in accordance with our Community Guidelines,” YouTube said in a statement. “Spotify, in cooperation with the distributor, has removed the content in question,” Spotify said in a statement. According to the FBI, Crimo has tattoos on his face that show four counting marks with a line running through his right cheek and a line above his left eyebrow that reads “Awake.” Mr. Crimo also has tattoos of red roses and green leaves on his neck.
Suspect threatened to ‘kill everyone’
Highland Park shooting suspect Robert Crimo (Robert Crimo/Reuters) Crimo threatened to “kill everyone” in his home with a “knife collection” three years before he allegedly went on his shooting spree. Police said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon that officers were called to his home for incidents twice in 2019. The second time – in September 2019 – police were called to a report by a family member that Mr Crimo had vowed to “kill” people inside the house and that he had a “knife collection”, which included a sword . Police rushed to the scene and seized the knives but did not arrest the suspect. This was after police were first called to the home in April 2019 on a report that Mr Crimo had tried to kill himself. Despite the incidents, Mr Crimo was able to legally purchase several firearms before Monday’s attack.
A strange obsession with the number 47
The 21-year-old appears to be obsessed with the number 47. Police believe Robert “Bobby” Crimo III dressed in a wig and women’s clothing before using a high-powered rifle to fire more than 70 bullets into a crowd in suburban Chicago on Monday morning, killing six and injuring dozens. Mr Crimo’s extensive digital footprint was often referred to as the number 47. He also had the number tattooed on the side of his face and it was also painted on the door of a car parked outside his family home.
The family of Robert Crimo
Mr. Crimo’s father has been identified as Bob Crimo Sr., 58, a local deli owner who once ran for mayor of Highland Park in 2019 but lost by a two-to-one margin to the incumbent. Days after the Uvalde Elementary School shooting in Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting, a Twitter account purported to belong to Mr. Crimo Sr. liked a pro-Second Amendment tweet. “Protect the Second Amendment like your life depends on it,” read the May 28 tweet. His mother has been identified as Denis Pesina, 48, a Mormon who gives alternative therapies, the Daily Mail reported. Crimo appeared at a school in a screenshot from a social media video (Robert Crimo via REUTERS) Mr. Crimo’s IMDb page describes him as the middle child of three siblings in an Italian-American family in Highland Park, Illinois. His uncle, Paul Crimo, told Fox 23 Chicago that the family saw no “warning signs” that he could have been involved in the shooting. “I saw no signs of suffering. And if I saw signs I would say something,” his uncle said. He said his nephew was a “YouTube rapper” who once worked at the bakery company Panera Bread.
